I despise George Osborne. However, his wedding was a private function, not a place for a protest.
The wedding of former chancellor George Osborne has been disrupted by a protest from environmental group Just Stop Oil.
About 200 people, including a number of well-known politicians and journalists, gathered in the Somerset village of Bruton on Saturday to mark the 52-year-old’s marriage to Thea Rodgers, 40, who worked as his aide during his time at the Treasury.
The pair, who have two sons, reportedly began dating in 2019 and announced their engagement in April 2021.
As they emerged from the church after the ceremony, a woman stepped forward and began throwing handfuls of confetti, similar in colour to the orange powder often used by Just Stop Oil, over their heads.
You could argue that it was pretty benign, but that’s not the point. It was a private event and she gate-crashed it. These people have been intolerable from the outset, yet they are intent on becoming ever more so. This is not protest, it is disruptive, antisocial behaviour and needs to be tackled. Slowly we are seeing some action by the police. Yet it is still too slow. The longer this goes on, the more likely ordinary people will step in and do their job for them. Sooner or later someone is going to get seriously hurt. If it’s a JSO activist, my sympathies will be notable by their absence.
I like the German police approach to them when they glue themselves to the road.
they dig up the road around their hand and send them on their way… with a big chunk of tarmac still attached!
I’ve seen several videos of people lugging around chunks of asphalt. lol
I disagree. I despise these Oil zealots but hate politicians even more. They need to understand that people hate them and this seems a benign way for them to be educated on that fact. If things carry on the way they are I would expect more extreme actions. TBH I’m surprised they are still so mild now.
Where I disagree is that a private event should always be out of bounds, no matter how much I despise the individual concerned.
Politicians stick their noses into my private affairs all the time. At the point of a gun. We haven’t got there with the pushbacks.
They do and we do need to pushback. However, I’m not getting into bed with JSO either actually or vicariously. My enemy’s enemy is not my friend. If anything, these people are worse than politicians.
No matter how much I despise George Osborne, there are limits and a man’s wedding is one of them.
“They need to understand that people hate them…”
The problem here being that JSO activists aren’t representative of ordinary people so they can be written off as spoiled brats and single issue obsessives.
If only there was a way where, legally, the same level of courtesy could be shown to JSO participants, and especially the numpties who are funding it.